Kelvin Cochran, the for­mer At­lanta fire chief fired last year after pub­lish­ing an anti-gay book, was in the spot­light on July 12 at a con­gres­sional hear­ing where he tes­ti­fied in fa­vor of the anti-LGBT First Amend­ment De­fense Act. Cochran said that FADA would pro­tect fed­eral em­ploy­ees from be­ing fired for their be­liefs, which he says was what the city of At­lanta did to him.

“Please pass the First Amend­ment De­fense Act and send the mes­sage that there is a place for me, and oth­ers like me, in the pub­lic square. In a truly di­verse so­ci­ety, no one de­serves to be os­tra­cized, marginal­ized, or driven out of their pro­fes­sion be­cause of their be­liefs about mar­riage,” Cochran said in pre­pared re­marks be­fore the House Over­sight and Gov­ern­ment Re­form Com­mit­tee.

All 10 GOP con­gress­man from Ge­or­gia have signed on as co-spon­sors of the bill, as well as Sen­a­tors Johnny Isak­son and David Per­due.

The Ge­or­gia leg­is­la­ture took up a ver­sion of the First Amend­ment De­fense Act in this year’s ses­sion. The spon­sor of the bill, state Sen. Greg Kirk (R-Amer­i­cus) later rolled in the most anti-LGBT lan­guage of the bill into HB 257, the bill that out­raged LGBT ac­tivists and led to threats of boy­cotts from cor­po­ra­tions across the coun­try. The bill passed both cham­bers of the leg­is­la­ture but was then ve­toed by Gov. Nathan Deal.

Cochran later said that the “the ac­tions of the City of At­lanta do not re­flect Amer­i­can val­ues,” and that the city was la­bel­ing those who be­lieve that mar­riage is be­tween one man and one woman as “out­casts.”

Cochran came un­der fire at the end of 2014 when pas­sages of his self-pub­lished book, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” be­came pub­lic.

Mayor Kasim Reed sus­pended Cochran for 30 days while the city in­ves­ti­gated the in­ci­dent, then fired him last Jan­uary. Cochran filed a fed­eral law­suit against the city last Fe­bru­ary and a judge ruled against the city’s mo­tion to dis­miss the suit last De­cem­ber.